View clinical trials related to Cognitive Aging.
Filter by:This project will develop and test the effects and mechanisms of a music improvisation training intervention on self-regulation of older adults with and without MCI. The investigator's overall hypothesis is that improvisation training will lead to improvements in self-regulation, compared to controls, and that improvisation training will be associated with specific changes in prefrontal brain networks and ultimately cognitive engagement.
While an intellectually active and socially integrated lifestyle shows promise for promoting cognitive resilience, the mechanisms underlying any such effects are not well understood. The aim of the current project is test the implications of the "mutualism" hypothesis, which suggests that intellectual function emerges out of the reciprocal influence of growth in abilities as they are exercised in the ecology of everyday life. Such a view implies that improvement in one component will enhance the modifiability of a related component. An additional aim was to test the idea that mutualistic effects will be enhanced by more diverse training in related skills, such as interleaved training of multiple skills, relative to single-component training. A "successive-enrichment" paradigm was developed to test this with working memory (WM) as the target for training given its centrality in models of attention, intellectual function, and everyday capacities such as reasoning and language comprehension. All participants receive the same target training, but the nature of the training that precedes it is manipulated. Outcome measures include pre- to posttest gains in working memory and episodic memory, as well as the rate of gain in learning the target task. The principle of enhanced mutualism would predict that more diverse experiences related to the target skill will enhance efficiency in acquiring the target skill.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro conduct a single-arm intervention trial to investigate the efficacy of a music-based group exercise program for community-dwelling older adults. Up to forty participants will be recruited to participate in a music-based light-to-moderate intensity group exercise program for 20 weeks (30 - 40 min/day, up to 6 days/week), which is designed for older adults with or without functional limitations to exercise with chairs for the improvement of aerobic capacity, upper and lower body strength, and balance control at a gradually increasing pace. During the exercise sessions, participants will be trained to move in time with music playlists in synchronous tempos. Primary outcomes are cognitive performance, mobility, and health-related quality of life measured before and after the intervention. Secondary outcomes are adherence to the exercise program as a potential mediator of the treatment.
The purpose of this study aimed to evaluate the effect of the three-month Chan-Chung qigong program in improving physical functional performance and quality of life in patients with mild to moderate cognitive impairments.A quasi-experimental design was adopted. Subjects were recruited from cognitive impairments outpatients these subjects,41were assigned to the control group and 41 to the experimental group in which Chan-Chuang qigong was administered.
The goal of the present randomized control trial is to evaluate the efficacy of a novel cognitive training approach using simulated games, where older adults will learn to flexibly deploy attentional control during working memory, for prevention of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Based on our extensive pilot work, we expect training-related enhancements in both neural and cognitive functions on a broad range of cognitive abilities due to the importance of attentional control and working memory in many types of cognition. These outcomes are widely applicable to the cognitive health and the quality of life of elderly Americans, and have further potential to offset degenerative processes common to normal aging.
Poor sleep quality is a known risk factor for cognitive decline in the elderly. Hearteningly, sleep is also a prime target for behavioral modification. In this study, the investigators propose to test mindfulness-based training (MBT) as an intervention to improve sleep quality by reducing sleep fragmentation, and hypothesize that these improvements will mediate the beneficial effects of MBT on sustained and executive attention. MBT consists of a suite of techniques aimed at enhancing awareness and acceptance of one's internal (e.g., thoughts and feelings) and external experiences in the present moment. Learning these techniques has been shown to improve sleep quality in patients with primary insomnia, and in other conditions associated with sleep disturbance. There is also increasing evidence that mindfulness training enhances multiple facets of cognition, including components of attention. In this study, the investigators will recruit 120 participants in a randomized controlled design, with 60 participants receiving MBT, and 60 receiving a sleep hygiene education and exercise program (SHEEP). Each intervention will last 8 weeks. Before and after the intervention, the investigators will collect objective and subjective measures of sleep quality, resting-state and task-related functional magnetic resonance imaging scans, and performance on standard laboratory tests of attention. The investigators hypothesize that, relative to SHE, MBT will result in significantly greater improvements in sleep quality and attentional metrics. They also predict that the cognitive changes will be mediated by the changes in sleep quality. If a positive result is found, this would indicate the use of MBT as a cost-effective behavioral intervention to stabilize or even improve cognition in the elderly, thus reducing the risk of dementia in this vulnerable population.
This study tests the effectiveness of using a new mobile application (Bingocize®) to improve older adults' (a) adherence to an engaging exercise program, and (b) aspects of functional performance, health knowledge, dietary habits, and cognition.
The study will compare the effect of broad and directed (narrow) technology-based training on basic perceptual and cognitive abilities in older adults and on the performance of simulated tasks of daily living including driving and fraud avoidance.
Blueberries are rich in flavonoids that possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which in rodent models are neuro-protective. The risk of developing dementia is reduced in people habitually consuming high flavonoid intakes, but data from human intervention studies is sparse. We therefore investigated whether 12 weeks of blueberry concentrate supplementation improved cognitive function in healthy elderly via increased brain activation and perfusion.
Attentional control, or individuals' ability to choose which stimuli in the environment they attend to and which they ignore, declines with older age. Studies from the past two decades suggest that mindfulness meditative practice, such as a standardized mindfulness based stress reduction programs, may increase the efficiency of attention networks.To date, the majority of studies that have related mindfulness meditation practice to attentional control have been based on retrospective self-reported mindfulness or cross-sectional measurement in experienced meditators. More recent experimental studies using pre-post training designs have shown that meditation-naïve individuals can experience attentional improvement with mindfulness intervention. This study seeks to elucidate the time course and process by which such attentional improvements might be achieved. This research study investigates change in attentional control as participants progress through an 8-week mindfulness-inspired training (MIT) intervention, and has two specific aims: 1) to determine the time course of change in attentional components such as cognitive control and sustained attention as a consequence of MIT; attention will be measured weekly for 3 weeks before, 3 weeks after, and during 8 weeks of MIT. 2) To investigate the extent to which change in attentional performance is coupled/correlated with markers of emotion regulation, perceived mindfulness, and perceived mind wandering.